Posts Tagged ‘Collin County’

Paxton Settles His Criminal Case

Tuesday, March 26th, 2024

After nine long years, seven years after the corresponding federal charges were thrown out, the case against Texas Attorney general Ken Paxton has ended with a whimper.

A trial set to begin in Harris County District Court on April 15 has been canceled after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton obtained a pretrial agreement with special prosecutors to drop nine-year-old felony securities charges against him in exchange for meeting several conditions.

Paxton was indicted in 2015 on three felony counts relating to state securities fraud – with the allegation that he did not disclose a financial ownership interest in a company that he solicited others to invest in, in addition to not being a registered investment advisor when doing so.

A plethora of legal issues have resulted in the case lingering for years before finally being set for trial, including battles over the payment of the special prosecutors handling the charges and motions regarding what judicial venue should ultimately host the case.

But after the Court of Criminal Appeals cleared the way last year for the venue to be set in Harris County, the trial date was finally set and all sides appeared ready to move forward.

That was until Tuesday, when after a meeting at the Harris County Courthouse attorneys for Paxton, along with the special prosecutors handling the case, announced a pretrial diversion agreement had been reached, in which the charges would be dropped once Paxton meets several terms.

Under the deal, Paxton must undergo 100 hours of community service in Collin County, take 15 hours of continuing legal education in ethics, and pay restitution of up to $300,000.

$300,000 is a considerable chunk of change, but I doubt it’s going to cramp the style of someone who practiced corporate law for a quarter of a century before being elected Attorney General.

But serving 100 hours of community service for three accused felonies is like getting a murder charge pled down to a traffic ticket. I sincerely doubt the plea will tarnish Paxton’s reputation among the voting public.

In truth the Texas voting public’s judgment on Paxton has already been rendered after he was reelected by a healthy margin in 2022 and acquitted in his impeachment trial.

This was the best shot Democrats had to end Paxton’s career and it didn’t amount to a hill of beans. He shows every sign of being around for Democrats to hate for a long, long time.

Dispatches from the Texas Lockdown

Tuesday, March 31st, 2020

It seems forever since Texas went into full lockdown mode over the Wuhan coronavirus, but it’s only been a week. Since I was already working from home full-time, I’m doing fine, but I can understand how more social people might be climbing the walls by now. Here’s a quick roundup of notable Texas coronavirus news.

  • Total statewide coronavirus cases top 2,900.
  • Texas Counties with the highest number of coronavirus cases as of this morning are:
    1. Harris: 563
    2. Dallas 549
    3. Tarrant 238
    4. Travis 206
    5. Denton 191
    6. Bexar 168
    7. Collin 160
    8. Fort Bend 138

    (The “per county” cases can be found on the “Admin2” tab on the lower left.) For those unfamiliar with Texas geography, Denton and Collin are both Metroplex suburban counties, while Fort Bend is directly southwest of Harris.

  • Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered enforcement of the quarantine order at the Louisiana border.

    Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday tightened travel to Texas by ordering some motorists from Louisiana to self-quarantine for two weeks.

    The new restrictions, effective noon Monday, came as President Donald Trump extended social distancing guidelines through April 30, preventing all nonessential travel in the country.

    Louisiana’s status as a hot spot for the novel coronavirus grew Sunday to more than 3,500 positive cases statewide. Under the new rules, drivers with commercial, medical, emergency response, military or critical infrastructure purposes for entering Texas would be exempted.

    A spokesman for the Department of Public Safety said Sunday the agency was not prepared to comment on the details of the new measures.

  • Both Governor Abbott and Travis County doctors are looking for specific hospitals to isolate coronavirus patients in.
  • In Houston, they’re looking to reopen at least one closed hospital, and in Dallas they’re looking at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center as an overflow facility.
  • Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has issued an opinion prohibiting counties and municipalities from banning firearms sales during the emergency.
  • Houston Methodist hospital is the first to treat coronavirus patients with recovered patient blood.
  • If the local HEB is any measure, the worst of the panic buying appears to be over, though there are still hole in the shelves. Meat was abundant, I was able to find olive oil (missing last week), and everything except toilet paper seemed obtainable.
  • All in all, we seem to be doing a lot better than New York and California. Which is usually the case in non-emergency times as well…

    A Roundup of Texas Lawsuits of Note

    Wednesday, October 26th, 2016

    A number of lawsuits related to local or federal overreach in Texas are working their way through the court system. Here’s a quick roundup of developments in a few notable cases.

  • U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor reiterated that the injunction that stops Obama’s tranny bathroom mandate still applies nationwide. Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the tranny bathroom mandate which has been joined by 13 other states.
  • Paxton has also joined a Texas Public Policy Foundation lawsuit against the City of Austin over their new short-term rental ordinance. “The Ordinance raises significant constitutional questions, because it functionally ousts homeowners and investors from real property without just compensation.”
  • Paxton also joined another TPPF lawsuit against the City of Brownsville over their $1 fee on plastic checkout bags, calling it an illegal sales tax, as bags are not taxable under state law.
  • Speaking of Paxton, in case you missed it, the SEC case against Paxton was thrown out by a federal judge:

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won a sweeping victory in court Friday when Federal District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III dismissed a fraud case the Securities and Exchange Commission had brought against him.

    Mazzant, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama, found that even if all the facts the SEC alleged were true, they didn’t amount to any violation of securities law by Paxton.

    The SEC had dogpiled on Paxton after Collin County special prosecutors got a local grand jury to indict Paxton under state securities law in August 2015.

  • Now the question is whether Collin County will drop its own case against Paxton, and end payment of high dollar special prosecutor fees, now that the SEC has dropped the case.
  • Also note that Texas is still a co-plaintiff in State of West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, over the Obama Administration’s “Clean Power Plan,” which the Supreme Court ordered stayed February of last year.